Good Times In Willington Quay
A Memory of Willington Quay.
I lived at 19 Church St, Willington Quay, just beside the ballast hills. My dad George worked at Cooksons, so we lived in company house - very big and quite grand.
We had no electricity in those days but it never bothered us. We had a wireless, windy-up gramaphone, and the ability to amuse ourselves. It was a very friendly place to live - no one locked doors and I often used to visit the lucky people in the street opposite who did have electricity and had TVs when they came out. I would plonk myself down to watch for an hour or two. Then on Saturday we would go to the Pearl pictures. My brother Alan,sister Gillian and friends - clutching sixpence - threepence to get in and threepence to spend.
We all attended Addison Potter school which was not far from our house. The teachers used to teach all our family. There were our older brother and sister, Billy and May. We used to go to Jarrow a lot as we were close to the pedestrian Tyne Tunnel. We often went to the pictures there as well as shopping. We had to leave Willington Quay in 1960 as our houses were demolished, but I still wished I lived in our old house. Happy days.
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My Mother passed last year and had quite severe dementia, but could sometimes remember things from years ago.She told me she lived at 33 South Terrace, Point Pleasant and used to sew uniforms for soldiers in County Durham. She remembered the air raid sirens going and how frightened she was and how the bombs were dropped on Willington Quay. Her father was a shipyard fitter I remember being taken as a child to Spanish City in Whitley Bay, when we returned up North for our annual holiday.Mum moved to Worcester to do war work and never returned to the North, she married dad in 1945 after VE day.As a child she played something called "buttony" I think she said it was, she had a happy childhood although they had hardly anything!!